All literary texts raise problems of interpretation. That is all the more true when these texts come from a foreign culture and have obviously not been written for us. The question is: how can we determine when our understanding of a literary work stops? There always seems to be a gap that cannot be bridged, a kernel that will always resist us. What is the exact nature of the foreign referents, of modes of symbolization we are not familiar with, of a memory which is not ours? It is commonly accepted that, even though mankind is one, cultures are irretrievably divided. Can a foreign writer tell us something that will be relevant for us about ourselves, the others, the world the divine, etc.? The problem clearly also has pedagogical consequences, especially for students who study literary works written in a foreign language.